Friday, August 21, 2015

Pirates Cove staff enjoy their well earned reward for selling the most mugs

Customer service wins the day! There is a huge difference in the experience you have in a place where the staff is disengaged, and a place where the staff is trained and focused on engaging the public and providing outstanding service.

For over a year NOVA Parks has been involved in an effort to set us apart from the pack in the area of customer service. Today we have an extensive and ongoing program on customer service. This summer all our front line seasonal staff had customers service training and continuous follow up.

One unexpected area where we were able to measure our customer engagement was in the sales of commemorative mugs at our water parks. We noticed early in the season that one particularly friendly and engaging staff at Pirates Cove Water Park was selling a lot of commemorative mugs. Customers were being told about the great deal in beverage refills that they would get with the purchase of the mugs. The friendly demeanor and good information were resulting in high sales. So we created a system wide challenge. With the reward of a Chipotle party for staff, each of our 5 water parks competed in July to see which one could sell the most commemorative mugs as a percent of total food sales.

This friendly competition resulted in everyone refocusing on customer engagement and good service. The results were an additional 262 mugs
over the 544 sold in June. There were increases across the board. Pirates Cove again won the competition, but because all the water parks stepped up their game for the competition they were all energized. The end result for the public was that they had friendly helpful staff engaging with them in positive ways. We never expected that the sale of a mug could be a barometer of customer service, but it was one measure of that quality that is hard to measure.

In a world where customer service is too often missing, our goal is to make all of our parks place of exceptional customer service. We want the public to look forward to interactions with our staff, and to have these interactions define consistently great experiences.

About Me

I am the Executive Director of NOVA Parks (Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority). Prior to that, I was the President of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. NOVA Parks is a regional park system made up of three Counties and three Cities in Northern Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, and the Cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church). NVRPA operates 30+ park and owns over 11,000 acres.
My family moved to Fairfax County when I was 1, so I am close to a native. I have a bachlors degree from St. Andrews University in N.C. and a masters degree from George Mason University. I also have a Certificate of Professional Development from the Wharton School of Business at UPA. I served on the Board of Regents for the NRPA Revenue Development and Management School, and am on the Board of Directors for Visit Fairfax.I am an Executive in Residense at George Mason University for their Recreation Management Program.
I also published two books one on leadership and the Civil War called "Lead Like a General." The other book is "High Performance Agencies: The Entrepreneurial Model for Public Park, Recreation and Tourism Organizations."